Homegrown Hops AA%

Hey folks,I got a couple of the nugget rhizomes from our friends here at BHB. I know that alpha acid ratings can't be confirmed on homegrown hops, but does anyone know if they tend to stay in the ballpark of the industrially grown hops...or does the aa% drop a bit because I'm an amateur grower/harvester?

Also, what do people do to prep their fresh hops for brewing? Dunk in some cold water like you would any other fresh veggie to get the bugs and stuff off?? Is that going to strip out some yummy hop goodness?

"Because homegrown hops are fresher and have suffered less handling, they are more bitter than commercial hops. Estimating their alpha as 50 percent higher than the average alpha for the same commercial cultivar is a pretty good guess. Knowing the exact alpha of your hops is less critical if you use them only for flavor and aroma additions."

If you scroll down to the section called "Estimating Hop Bitterness" there is an interesting method the author suggests for figuring out ballpark bitterness by making teas out of the homegrown hops and hops of a known alpha acid.

I plan on doing the hop tea comparison with any cones I get off my hops. If anyone has a more recent reference, please post!

There's a Basic Brewing Radio podcast that covers the hop tea method. Basically, you make a tea using a certain amount of hops until you perceive bitterness. Then, you make a tea using hops of known AA% until you perceive bitterness. Obviously you would need some method for determining the IBU of the tea using the hops of the known AA%. The key is you have to do this for yourself because it is based on the testers ability to perceive bitterness, which differs between us.

Good luck!

If I get lucky and get any usable hops this year, I am just going to make a "Harvest Pale Ale" and wing it. I'd rather use the hops for beer and not know the exact numbers than bother with the tests.

Your best bet might be to rub apart up one of the cones (after drying) and take a good whiff to see what aroma you get. I used exclusively home-harvested Cascade cones last year in a pale ale and got zero hop flavor/bitterness/aroma... very disappointing! I remember there being no huge perfume from them, but didn't think too much of it. Unless you're at year 2 or 3 with the rhizomes in full sun, I would guess on the low end for AA%.